In the prior art, many attempts have been made at providing automated, weather and theft resistant, or load bearing vehicle covers. For example, Kirkum U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,194 discloses an automatic cover assembly for an open top pickup truck consisting of a series of travelling rectangular frames covered with a sheet of flexible material. The frames are stored in accordion folds in a box located at the front of the truck. Motor means are provided to drive and control the movement of the frames and cover sheet in the manner of a rack and pinion drive. However, this reference does not disclose a load bearing cover in which a portion of the drive system is integrated into the structure of the cover. It also fails to disclose a cover system that is wound on a reeling system or means for extending and driving the cover to the floor of the truck bed. Thorpe U.S. Pat. No. 3,774,958 discloses a dump truck having a continuous sheet metal cover which is wound upon a motor driven cylindrical drum which is located above and forward of the truck body. There are sinusoidal guides for the lateral edges of the sheet metal in the upper side walls of the truck body. The roll is contained on the drum by a plurality of rods positioned around the drum. The cover is moved along the guides to an open or closed position by rotation of the drum on which the sheet is wound. This references does not disclose a segmented load bearing cover in which a portion of the drive system is integrated into the structure of the cover, nor does it disclose means for extending and driving the cover to the floor of the truck bed. Additionally, it does not disclose a reeling and holding device for the cover which is separate from the drive system. Lamb U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,034 discloses a retractable cover for a conventional pickup truck which includes a pair of beaded edges, wherein each of these beaded edges is slidably engaged in a track mounted to the side walls of the truck bed. One end of the cover is attached to a spring-loaded roller, rotatably mounted to the forward section of the truck bed, and a locking mechanism is at or near the tail gate to maintain a spring bias when the cover is in an extended position. The cover system of this reference is operated and moved to a manually closed position, has no provision for a motor, and is not load bearing. The cover is retracted by the reeling action of the spring loaded roller, and is stored and held on the same spring loaded roller. There is no provision for driving the cover to the floor of the bed of the truck.
The Campbell U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,362 shows a conventional pickup bed with a cover comprised of a double-layered sheet of material. Slats may be fastened transversely between the layers. When the cover is only a sheet, it is housed on a reel. When it includes slats, it is stored in a fan-fold configuration, separate from a reel. The cover is supported slidably in a multi-channel track in the side walls. This allows the rear of the cover to be moved by hand through the chosen channel to the floor of the truck bed and define a closed compartment which is less than the total cargo area. The cover is extended by hand and withdrawn using a hand lever and a rack and pawl mechanism. There is no drive system to extend the cover or to drive it to the floor of the truck bed. Penner U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,416 describes an open truck body using a flexible cover that is wound on a spring loaded transverse longitudinal roller at one end of the truck box and connected at its other end to a pair of mounting plates which are, in turn, attached to an endless chain journaled around front and rear sprockets on each side of the truck body. A power source is connected to the sprockets and can effect the forward or rearward movement of the chain and mounting plates that cause the cover to move between its open and closed positions. Again, this reference does not disclose a segmented, load bearing cover in which a portion of the drive system is integrated into the structure of the cover. McKeon, U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,154 discloses a semi-truck trailer for bulk loading employing an overhead door composed of a multiplicity of pivotally connected, load bearing flat panels coupled to a rotatable drum around which the door is rolled when in its open position. The door is moved to its closed position by means of a cable journaled around a pulley at the rear of the trailer and attached to a hand-crank operated cable winding drum. It is moved to the open position by using a second crank which rotates the door winding drum to withdraw and store the door. The system is hand driven, by means of a crank, but the drive system is not integrated into the structure of the cover. Cross U.S. Pat. No. 3,649,072 teaches a manually operated, load bearing cover system in which a series of transverse interlocking slats are longitudinally moved to form a telescoped stack. The system has no drive means integrated with the cover, nor does it have means for storage on a reeling system.
Other prior art systems are disclosed in Liebler U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,248,538; Groth, et al. 2,992,040; McKeon 4,138,154; Marvin et al. 4,210,361 and Campbell 4,252,362.